


shot at love

by thistidalwave



Category: Radio 1 RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>uni au. Nick hosts a dating game show the day before Valentine's Day. Matt is an unwitting contestant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shot at love

Nick has this problem where he can never reject LMC when she asks him to do things for her, so that’s how he ends up hosting a dating game show the day before Valentine’s Day. The room is stuffed full of giggling uni students who refuse to shut up, and the first bachelor and the lady contestant he’d picked are already sitting on the Sofa of Love, as dubbed by LMC, looking awkward and a little enamoured. 

“Okay!” Nick says into the microphone. “We’re going to draw our next contestants out of the hat of fabulous men folk. LMC?” LMC holds out the hat so that Nick can draw out a slip of paper and read out the name. “Contestant number one is Greg James!” 

A group of people in the back cheer loudly and a tall man makes his way to the front to raucous applause. “Congrats, contestant number one, on your shot at looooove tonight,” Nick says exaggeratedly. “Please take a seat on the left side of the stage.”

Nick knows Greg, as most people do, and Greg high fives him on his way past. Nick shakes his head at him, and Greg shrugs, grinning.

Nick draws another contestant, a guy called Phil Taggart who looks rather nervous. Nick tries to look encouraging and probably scares him a bit. 

“And contestant number three is Matt Fincham,” Nick announces. He knows that name, he thinks, and when Matt finally emerges from the audience, looking slightly murderous, he realises that it’s because Matt is the cute guy that’s in eighty percent of Nick’s classes. 

“Can I withdraw?” Matt asks under his breath when he reaches Nick. “I didn’t enter my name.”

Nick frowns at him, glancing sidelong at LMC. “Are you not single?” he asks, holding the mic away from him. He’s going to be the tiniest bit crushed if Matt says he isn’t. 

“No, I am,” Matt admits, and Nick’s heart flutters. “I just… I think my friend entered me?”

“It’s relatively painless,” Nick assures him, like Matt doesn’t already know that from watching the first round. 

“Even if you win, you don’t have to marry the girl,” LMC points out. “And you get a free meal.”

Matt sighs and shakes his head, walking past them to get up on the stage. Nick looks at LMC, who shrugs. “All right, everyone give contestant number three a round of applause,” Nick commands. The audience half complies, which Nick counts as a win. “As we know, the bachelorette will come out and sit on the other side of the stage, over where our beautiful makeshift curtain will block the contestants’ view of her. She’s been hiding, so she didn’t hear the names of any of our contestants. Everyone welcome our bachelorette!” 

The audience are very enthused about the bachelorette, it seems, which means she’s either very popular, very hot, or both. Nick waits until Ian gives him a thumbs up from the other side of the stage before directing her to ask the contestants the first question listed on the paper heart they’ve given her. 

“Um, okay,” she says. “Are you a cat person or a dog person?” 

Nick nods to Greg, who answers cats right away before passing the mic to Phil. Phil waffles a bit before going with cats, and Matt answers with dogs. Nick shoots him a thumbs up before prompting for the next question. 

“Where would you take me on a date?” 

Greg looks gleeful and proceeds to regale everyone with an in-depth tale of romantic candlelit dinner and a long walk on the beach. Phil looks intimidated and takes the mic to mutter a quick “Wherever you wanna go,” which makes the audience coo.

Matt still looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. “I’d probably want to go out to a party with friends or something,” he says. “Or we could just stay in and watch some telly, I’m not fussy.”

“Good answers,” Nick says. “I know which contestant I’d go for.” He shoots a wink obviously in Matt’s direction. Matt does not look impressed. “Can we hear the third and final question before we turn it over to the audience?” 

“What’s your worst personality trait?” 

“Contestant number one?” Nick prompts.

“I’m not quite sure,” Greg says. “Probably that I’m really flirtatious and can forget about boundaries.”

“I’m shy,” Phil says, which is news to exactly no one in the room.

“I’m a perfectionist,” Matt says.

“Cheater,” Nick says immediately. “That’s not even a bad thing.”

Matt glares at him. “No, I mean, I really need everything to be perfect. It’s a flaw.”

Nick shakes his head but lets it go. “Okay, does anyone in the audience want to ask our contestants a question to help the bachelorette make her decision? Come on up, don’t be shy.”

A brunette Nick vaguely recognises waves her hand in the air, and Nick points at her and gestures for her to come up. She does, taking the mic when Nick offers it to her. “What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done while drunk?” The audience laughs.

“I’m going to kill you, Fiona,” Matt says to the girl, and Nick places her as the girl Matt hangs out with a lot. He doesn’t have the mic, having passed it back to Greg, so no one past the front row can hear him. It makes Nick laugh, though, and Fiona only waves at him before giving Nick back the mic and going to sit back down. 

“So, your most embarrassing drunk story, contestant number one?” 

Greg, of course, gets the whole audience laughing with his recount of taking off most of his clothes and doing things he’d rather not mention with lipstick. Phil turns a bright red and says he’d rather not say, and when Nick tells him he’s a spoilsport, jokes that he has to have something to say on the date and gives Matt the mic before Nick can press further. 

Matt doesn’t say anything though, which forces Nick to raise his eyebrows at him and say, “Contestant number three?”

“Right,” Matt says, “so I can’t lie because my best friend witnessed this and she’s sitting in the audience. I’m really sorry about this story. I drank an entire mickey of Jack Daniels, blacked out, and found out in the morning that I made out with at least six people, rolled around on the floor, and insisted I could play Beethoven on the piano while actually just playing Chopsticks over and over.” Everyone is laughing hysterically at this point, and Matt raises his voice to say, “I actually _can_ play Beethoven, by the way, just not when I’m totally pissed.”

Nick can’t stop laughing for long enough to breathe, and LMC looks completely unimpressed with him. So does Matt, which is most of the problem, as his face is the decadent icing on the cake of his story. 

“Right, right, settle down, you lot,” LMC says, having appropriated the mic from Nick. “Any more questions? Has the bachelorette made a decision?” 

Nick gets a hold of himself and takes the mic back. “I just want to let everyone know that there are no losers tonight, as I am available. Especially to you, contestant number three, though I think our bachelorette would be silly to let you go. Beethoven!” He sets himself off into another round of giggles. LMC hits him in the arm. 

There are no more questions, and the bachelorette actually picks Phil even though the audience were all trying to get her to pick Greg. Nick pouts, but then shrugs and says, “More for me!” He winks at Matt, who shakes his head as he goes to sit back down. 

There are two more rounds, which is very long and tiresome by the end of it, and then Nick gladly announces that it’s over and they can all head to the pub next door to mingle or whatever the fuck. 

“Thanks for doing this, Nick,” LMC says. 

“You’re welcome. I’m not helping you clean up, though,” Nick says. “And you can say thanks by buying me a drink when you get over to the pub.”

“Cheers, Grim,” LMC says. “Good luck with round two’s contestant number three.” She winks at him. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick says. He’d mostly been hamming it up for laughs, even if he secretly meant it, but he figures that Matt probably genuinely isn’t interested, probably because he’s straight, and it’d be best to just cut his losses and stand by the bar looking particularly hot and available or something. 

He ends up hanging out with Aimee and Ian for awhile, but eventually they get way too cute for him to handle and he wanders away. He’s quite drunk and inspecting a picture on the wall with a little too much focus when someone taps him on the shoulder. Nick jumps violently and nearly smacks them in the face. 

“Oh, er,” Matt says. “Sorry.”

“No, no, I’m sorry, you startled me. Hi. What’s up?” 

Matt shrugs, and then says, “Look, I don’t mean to be so forward, but when you were going on about me being the best option, were you actually being serious?” 

Nick stares at him. “Um. Did you want me to be?” 

“I probably wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t,” Matt points out. Nick is possibly a little in love with him. 

“Then yes,” Nick says decisively. “I was actually being serious.”

“Fiona wanted me to ask,” Matt says. “She, um, said she’s sick of listening to me wang on about you.”

“Oh,” Nick says. Then he realises what Matt said and nearly drops his drink. “Wait, what?” 

Matt looks anywhere but at Nick, arms crossed in front of him. “Yep.”

“So we should make out now or sommat, right?” Nick wants to drown himself in his drink immediately after the words leave his mouth. That was probably the stupidest thing he could have said in that moment. 

Matt looks at Nick like he’s insane, which only serves to make Nick feel worse. “You have to wine and dine me first, didn’t you hear about me being a perfectionist?” His tone sounds vaguely like he might be joking, and Nick latches onto it like a drowning man and a lifesaver. 

“Oh God, it _is_ a flaw,” Nick laments, smiling in what he hopes is an encouraging manner. “Do I have to buy you flowers as well?”

“Seeing as tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, that would be appropriate, yes,” Matt says, barely hiding a smile. “Also maybe some chocolate.”

“Very cheeky. You’re asking too much of me,” Nick says, shaking his head. He puts his drink down on the closest table and leans against it. “I don’t know if I can commit to so much so soon.” 

Matt takes a step closer to him, essentially trapping him against the table. “Maybe I’m worth it,” he says. He’s so close that Nick has to shuffle his feet apart so that Matt can step between them. This close Nick can tell that he’s pretty sloshed, even if he looks like he has it together. Nick hopes this isn’t going to be another embarrassing drunk story Matt tells under duress and everyone laughs at. 

“That was smooth,” Nick says, and then he kisses Matt, because if he doesn’t do it now, maybe Matt will wake up sober and regret everything he just said. 

It’s kind of terrible and completely wonderful, and Matt pulls away after a moment and says, “You know I meant it, right?”

“Did you?” Nick asks, head spinning. His hands are gripping the edge of the table behind him. He feels like if he tried to stand he’d fall straight through the floor. 

Matt nods. “The bit about liking you, I don’t so much care about the chocolate.”

“That’s good to know,” Nick says. “Can we still go on a date?” 

“Obviously,” Matt says. “Don’t be stupid.” 

Nick is about to open his mouth to argue when Matt kisses him again. He briefly considers arguing anyway, but really, Matt has exactly the right idea.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: the bachelorette was Alice Levine, and in-universe she and Phil are best friends :3


End file.
